I saw Batman Begins this weekend and I'm still trying to decide whether it is the best Batman movie of all time or not. Although there is no villain who gives a performance as commanding as Jack Nicholson's in 1989 Batman movie, Christian Bale is a better Batman than Michael Keaton and Michael Caine plays Alfred better than I imagined possible. Morgan Freeman is also great as Lucius Fox.

The movie is over 2 hours long which is to be expected given that it spends the first 45 minutes or more on the back story leading up to Bruce Wayne deciding to become the Batman. Though the movie is a bit long it makes up for this by hitting all the right notes when it comes to exploring the Batman mythos. My favorite themes from the comic are there from the night and day difference between Bruce Wayne's playboy lifestyle and Batman's ongoing war on crime to Jim Gordon questioning whether the existence of Batman encourages the existence of the more "theatrical" criminals (e.g. Joker, Two Face and the Riddle).

I definitely can't wait to see the next movie in the series.

Score: **** out of *****